I've decided to cancel this story here. The urge to write has been swallowed up but a variety of interests and duties are pulling my attention in seemingly all directions, and I've decided to let this one go.
However, I've decided to pull back the curtain a bit in order to reveal some of the backstory of the conflict between Salem, Ozpin and Lamb. Maybe it might inspire other people, maybe not… but people were interested all the same and you deserve an answer.
The first thing one needs to understand is that the Brothers are not the only deity-like beings in the cosmos.
The second is that there are rules that these entities abide by. They are arcane and insanely difficult for mortals to discover/comprehend the reasons for, but they exist. From the mortal point of view, even if you can discover some of the rules, they came across as fey like in complication and sense.
The two rules that matter for this story (and which Salem and Ozpin have the best understanding of) are related to ownership; How divine beings can stake their claim on a world and how this claim can be contested.
The Brothers left Remnant, but because they left the relics and Ozpin with his divine mission, they didn't abandon it (Salem doesn't count for ownership purposes due to her being a curse designed to make her suffer rather than a champion of the gods). As such, Remnant still belongs to them, despite their absence from the world.
Narinder, better known as the One Who Waits, is a deity of death and seeks to challenge the Brothers ownership of Remnant to claim it for his own. However, he cannot manifest on the planet or interfere with the planet directly because the planet belongs to another god. He can, however, elect a champion from the population of Remnant to serve him and pursue his interests.
The exact rules/terms of engagement vary from planet to planet, but in the case of Remnant the victory condition for Narinder is connected to the Relics the Brothers left behind: If all four Relics can be captured and rededicated to Narinder, the Brothers lose their claim to the world and Remnant becomes the domain of Narinder instead.
Selecting a champion is not a simple process through. A deity cannot just reach out and pick someone; They must be the right kind of person in the right place at the right time… all of which makes sense to a divine being but to mortal minds the requirements are insanely cosmic and arbitrary in nature. Much like in the grander scheme of deities, there are rules.
When Narinder turned their attention to Remnant, both Ozpin (or at least the Oz at the time) and Salem noticed due to their connection to the Brothers. It is one of, if not the only time, during the whole Shadow War between them that the pair called a cease fire and combined their resources to find out what the hell was going on… and in turn, try to thwart the creation of a champion for this alien deity.
Salem's pride and hatred of the Brothers causes her to refuse the possibility of a new entity stepping in to try and lay claim to Remnant or hold power over her. Oz, despite being the champion of the Brothers and tasked with a mission from them, actually believes that Remnant and humanity is better off without the Brothers or other divine beings around.
So, the two of them worked together and managed to discover enough of the requirements for Narinder creating a champion on their world to know the region it had to happen in and the nature of who the person needed to be (they couldn't work out the timeframe, but they knew it was 'soon'). Pressed for time, Salem decided to act and unleashed her agents and the Grimm with a grim task; Slaughter every Faunus slave within the region.
Oz.. did nothing to stop her or the bloodshed.
Whole settlements were razed with their populations butched, survivors and refugees seeking to escape the area were hunted down without pity or mercy… but one heavily fortified settlement held out against the onslaught. With time running out and Salem's agents unable to find the purchase they needed to either breach or infiltrate, Oz stepped forward instead.
A somewhat well known and famous huntsman in that incarnation, Oz and a band of huntsmen that he vouched for arrived and offered their services to the besieged town, promising to help bolster their defences and endure. He was welcomed in… and he betrayed them.
The 'huntsmen' that he had brought with him were some of Salem's less publicly known people at the time since he didn't want his own people involved in what was going to happen next. In part this was because he wanted to protect his people from this morally repugnant action, but he also believed that several of them would let their morality get the better of them and try to save people instead of following the plan.
So, the defences were sabotaged, the gates thrown wide open and the rest of Salem's band and grimm poured in to finish their work as Oz walked away.
Of course, the plan failed, and Lamb became the bearer of the Red Crown.
Lamb was not his original name, but after his original death and resurrection he went by Lamb instead; To him, his former name belonged to a slave that suffered a short and brutal life filled with pain, loss and fear. That person's sad story ended with their neck on a chopping block. He was a teenager when he died for the first time… and he hasn't aged a day since then.
He hates Salem what she did to him and his people and he despises Oz for his betrayal. He has tried to kill both over the years and in fact has a collection of skulls that belong to Oz's incarnations and Salem's champions since he cannot kill Salem (and he tried. Really hard. With a fork.) Over the years through, Lamb has come to acknowledge that being the host of Oz does not make you Oz; There was going to be a point where Oscar and Lamb would meet and not only get along to the surprise of those traveling with him at the time but would also reveal that he wouldn't think of killing or harming Oscar until Oz had completely consumed his personality.
The Red Crown as an organization is an old one by the time of the story. While the public mythology/history of them views them as surgically arcuate White Fang that focused on assassination and freeing slaves, in truth they are a kingdom onto themselves that has enclaves and agents the world over.
Their settlements are hidden and insanely well defend. Agents of the Red Crown have jobs within the primary kingdoms such as scouting and bookkeeping that ensure that no one gets any hints of their locations or existence. These settlements originally started off as places for freed faunus slaves to hide out and recover, but as time passed they became settlements in their own rights as those who sort shelter there made them able to sustain a population and started to set down roots and have families.
There are humans who live in these settlements and serve in the Red Crown as well; Lamb has always welcomed the exiled and the outcast, regardless of what form they happened to be in. These settlements are also highly militant; Everyone gets their aura unlocked, everyone gets combat training and serves in the militia. Not everyone has to be a career solder, but despite their defences this is a culture that has long developed with the acknowledgement of the dangers of the Grimm and their fellow man.
Interestingly, their technology is also different due to not relying on dust. This was just a practical development; Mining dust in enough bulk to power a town or settlement is difficult and getting shipments from outside corporations is a logistical nightmare. So, they've developed alternatives over the centuries.
They are also, pound for pound, some of the most well-armed people on the planet of Remnant. While militant by nature, the primary reason for this came about post Grand War; While the other kingdoms demilitarized and let Huntsmen take a greater importance on kingdom defence (with the exception of Atlas, which preferred focusing on android and air supremacy), the Red Crown opted to make sure that its population was trained to use weaponry to defend themselves and ensured that the weapons in question would be easy to use, easy to maintain and could allow someone who didn't focus on a life of warfare and battle who spent the minimum amount of time required to train with their weapon to down the more common types of grimm with relative ease.
This isn't to say that the Red Crown doesn't train Huntsmen. They do. But having the civilian population have the means to properly defend themselves from grimm attacks with weaponry designed for the task frees the huntsmen up from having to protect the flock and allows them to focus on dealing with the threats that cannot be gun downed so easily (They'll still keep an eye on the flock and swoop in if required to defend them, but they can be trusted to fight off the lesser forms of grimm).
There were also going to be three OC's introduced to the story (all of them in the unfinished chapter I've been working on since the last one came out). Mary, Ebony and Snow. Mary was the human woman who ran the soup kitchen the Blake was going to investigate and is also the current wife of Lamb. Ebony and Snow were her sheep faunus daughters who are actively training at Beacon to become Huntsmen, with Snow having a beautiful white fleece while Ebony's was black; Unsurprisingly, they were Lamb's daughters.
All three are inspired by nursery rhymes. Mary and Snow from Mary had a little lamb and Ebony by Baa Baa Black Sheep.
I could properly say more but… let's leave it here.
Edit: Right! I knew I forgot something important people might want the answer to!
What Lamb wanted Ozpin to do if he wanted him to even begin to forgive him was impossible, but simple: Tell Lamb the names of his dead family.
This is a lot harder than one would think, because Narinder/The Red Crown gives Lamb certain magical abilities… one of which is to prevent Jinn from being able to uncover any information about Lamb that he doesn't want to share. If she tries, a manifestation of Lamb will appear before Jinn and the person asking the question and he'll judge for himself if that information will be shared.
Edit: Right! I knew I forgot something important people might want the answer to!
What Lamb wanted Ozpin to do if he wanted him to even begin to forgive him was impossible, but simple: Tell Lamb the names of his dead family.
This is a lot harder than one would think, because Narinder/The Red Crown gives Lamb certain magical abilities… one of which is to prevent Jinn from being able to uncover any information about Lamb that he doesn't want to share. If she tries, a manifestation of Lamb will appear before Jinn and the person asking the question and he'll judge for himself if that information will be shared.
Edit: Right! I knew I forgot something important people might want the answer to!
What Lamb wanted Ozpin to do if he wanted him to even begin to forgive him was impossible, but simple: Tell Lamb the names of his dead family.
This is a lot harder than one would think, because Narinder/The Red Crown gives Lamb certain magical abilities… one of which is to prevent Jinn from being able to uncover any information about Lamb that he doesn't want to share. If she tries, a manifestation of Lamb will appear before Jinn and the person asking the question and he'll judge for himself if that information will be shared.
